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Surfin' Patagonia. In his just-published biography, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard tells the story of his life, including how living on cat food, porcupine and squirrel figured into his success, reports Michelle Archer in USA Today. Actually, his diet may or may not have helped him succeed, but, as relayed in "Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman," Yvon Chouinard did live on critters while getting his start selling mountain-climbing equipment out "from the back of his car" in the 1950s. He was selling the gear to support himself, back then, but it wasn't just any old gear. Dissatisfied with "the quality of climbing hardware he was using," Yvon "taught himself blacksmithing and began forging his own equipment. He started with pitons, metal spikes hammered into rocks and used to secure ropes. At the time, climbers left pitons in place, and hundreds were needed to climb the walls of Yosemite; his could be removed from the rocks and re-used."
By the 1970s, Yvon's enterprise -- originally known as Chouinard Equipment -- evolved into "the largest domestic supplier of climbing equipment." Apparently, only then did Yvon realize "that he had become, by default, a businessman." And because of the success of his apparel line, he recognized the need for a brand name, and chose Patagonia because he thought it projected "romantic visuals of glaciers tumbling into fjords, jagged windswept peaks, gauchos and condors." He began publishing a catalog, which combines "adventure stories, pleas to register to vote and environmental essays alongside gorgeous action shots of people in Patagonia apparel. The ideal balance is 55 percent product content and 45 percent message -- any more product presentation has actually resulted in a decrease in sales, he writes." Yvon extends a similar sense of balance into his workplace, where he blurs "the lines between work, play and family so employees could have flextime to surf when waves were good or take care of a sick child."
Yvon is, however, most rigid when it comes to product quality, and his reasoning is simple: "If a tool failed, it could kill someone and since we were our own best customers, there was a good chance it could be us!" The sensibility is captured more formally in the company's mission statement: "Make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis." He claims that Patagonia's use of organic cotton inspired Nike, Levi's and Gap to follow suit, and further asserts that "every time Patagonia has elected to do the right thing for the environment ... even when it costs twice as much, it's turned out to be more profitable." And privately-held Patagonia is profitable, "despite controlling growth to about five percent a year and devoting one percent of sales (about $2.5 million per year) toward protecting and restoring the environment." Patagonia currently has 23 U.S. stores, and another 21 in Europe, Asia and South America.
Tim Manners
editor
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©2005 reveries.com |
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